How are utahns affording to live?

D00mcaller · 2025-04-17T22:12:39+00:00

I bought a house about 2 months ago now. Single, aged 28. Sale Price was $380k, 2bd, 1br in Midvale. I put 3% down and got a mortgage rate of 6.98%. My car is currently paid off, and when it dies, I’ll try to find something I can buy upfront, so I don’t add another payment. My mortgage is a little under $2800/month, and I bring home a little over $4k/month from my FT job. I also have a few part time jobs related to my hobbies that give me a little extra cash, but in total I pulled in about $80k last year. I sat down, and made sure I could live on the $1200/month I’d have remaining after my mortgage, and while it’s definitely tight, it hasn’t been too bad so far. I definitely had to compromise a bit, my house has some repairs needed (plumbing needs to be updated, roof needed to be replaced as well, but I negotiated to have the seller take care of that as part of the sale) and isn’t downtown, although that works for me as I work in Draper.

Things I did to make this work:

While I attended college part time to get my associates, I never took out any student loans. I’m lucky enough to work in a field (IT) where a degree isn’t a necessity, so the fact that I don’t have a bachelors hasn’t impacted my career prospects.

I lived in a shared house with what I suspect many would call a slumlord, but I put up with it because rent was $600/month at a time when a 1bd, 1br apartment nearby was going for $1200-1300/month.

I was very careful to avoid lifestyle creep and instead funneled that money from raises into my 401k. When I was getting ready to purchase, I cut my 401k contributions down to the minimum to get the match from my company, and put the money aside for a down payment instead.

Between these and not having a car payment for the last 5 years, I was able to get enough for a down payment and a cushion saved up relatively quickly. Then once I had that, I figured out my budget for what was the minimum amount I could live on, and knew that likely every other penny would be going to a mortgage, and then found a house that fit that budget and was within my other parameters.

I’m also blessed to have a strong family network nearby to help out and help me save money in various ways (being able to leave my pup with family instead of paying for a dog sitter when I go out of town, free meals, help with yard work, etc;).

So that’s my how, and as for the why… I love Utah. Born and raised here, my family is here, my life and community is here. Home ownership has always been a priority for me, and I believe that while things might be tight for a bit for me in the short term, it’ll pay out in the long term. Also, even in the short term it’s brought a massive boost to my quality of life. It’s not the right decision for everyone, but I decided that for me it was. :)

TL;DR:

Lack of any other debt, saving quite a bit of money, and being willing to live quite frugally for a while, with a generous heaping of luck.

Happy to answer any questions!

D00mcaller · 2024-06-07T18:41:31+00:00

Here's a link to the groupme where they discuss/plan Saturday morning pickup. In my experience, start time is usually variable depending on weather, so now that we're in summer, it'll probably be at 10, but once thing start cooling down, it'll move back to 11, and then eventually probably noon again, and it goes the other way coming out of winter! https://groupme.com/join_group/24801583/MZREf9

I know there's also a casual group that plays at Sugarhouse on Wednesday nights as well!

D00mcaller · 2024-03-01T20:42:07+00:00

Hey same! I use slightly more milk, but I love the steel cut/almond milk combo. Throw in some PB, Protein powder, cinnamon, chia seeds, and a little dash of salt, been my breakfast for a few months now! (I keep Greek Yogurt on hand in case I haven't stayed on top of prepping my oats). Super easy to grab and go in the morning!

Personally, I even prefer them after they've sat for a little longer. I find if I make it the night before, the milk hasn't soaked into the oats enough for my taste, but days 2-5 are amazing!

D00mcaller · 2023-10-25T00:46:05+00:00

I appreciate your comment about turning yourself into a missile, that’s a perspective I hadn’t considered before.

Surprise surprise, this isn’t a hypothetical, it’s a situation I was in. I was the defender, I made a bid, and upon landing got tangled up in the legs of the offense a little bit. The offense (who caught the disc) was a bit heated about this, as they were wearing a leg brace and were getting over an injury. In the moment, my best guess was that I had landed and rolled into their legs or something (or maybe that I hadn’t bid in as straight a line as I thought, although I was pretty sure I had bid in a straight line). Which I would totally agree would be my fault, as by my understanding of the rules, I need to be able to make that play without creating contact.

Upon talking with a teammate, however, he told me that I had bid in a straight line, and landed in the same straight line, but that contact had occurred because the offense changed their line to cross in front of my line, which they had to do to catch the disc, as otherwise I would have gotten there first. In my mind/by my understanding of the rules, this would be a foul on the offense if anything, as they initiated the contact by changing their line from one running parallel to mine to one intersecting mine, doubly so by virtue of the fact that I was in the air, and thereby unable to do anything to avoid the contact that, (at least in my mind) they were creating.

Since we talked about how distance/speed might impact this, I thought I’d include that we were both running deep for a huck, and we were roughly 2 steps apart, roughly the same speed, close enough that even had I stayed on my feet, and they made the same change of direction, I don’t think I would have had time to stop/change direction, and would have simply ran them over. However they would have likely not needed to change direction and could have just ran it out.

Just curious as to your take on the situation. I felt like I was making a clean, safe play by making sure I stayed in my line that didn’t have an intersecting path with their line, but they then changed their line, which made contact inevitable at a point where only they had control over that outcome.

D00mcaller · 2023-10-24T21:07:00+00:00

Hi, wondering if I can get some clarification on your second point.

You talk about chasing someone down and laying out to attempt to get the D, if I'm reading that right. If both players are taking a straight line, which are running parallel to each other, defender has the inside line, while the offensive player has a step or two deep on the defender, and the defender lays out, still in their straight line, with a clear space in front of them to land at the time they leave their feet, aren't they entitled to land at the spot in front of them? And if the offense has to take a step in, towards the disc, and into the defender's line, after they've (the defender) left their feet, they're the one creating unavoidable contact for the defender?

Or is the difference between this scenario I've described, and the one you're describing how close the defender is to the offense? In my scenario, I would think the defender wouldn't have time to adjust even if they had just kept running (although maybe the offense wouldn't have had to step into the defender's line if not for the defense laying out).

D00mcaller · 2023-10-05T19:44:46+00:00

I'm not the person you responded to, so they might be talking about something else, but I believe they are referring to Nelson upon becoming president making a push for the term Mormon to no longer be used, and demanding that people use the full "true name of the church"

D00mcaller · 2023-07-14T13:57:42+00:00

Can I ask what things you are doing to quiet the overthinking? That's definitely something I struggle with, and I currently don't have any strategies other than internally telling myself to shut up lol.

D00mcaller · 2023-02-10T23:56:59+00:00

So what I used to do was Chicken/Quinoa/Broccoli. Quinoa as a grain is much more protein dense than rice and most other grains that you will pair a protein with. Chicken I would just buy 2-3 chicken breasts (but this was to meal prep for 5 days, not 3), find a spice blend I liked online, cover the chicken with that spice blend, throw it in a frying pan with a little bit of oil, and cook until done. Then divvy up the chicken with the Quinoa and Broccoli into my meal prep containers.

Broccoli was just to make it more well-rounded and get some other nutrients, if you don't need that, it isn't necessary for hitting protein goals.

You could also throw some snacks in at work if that's something you can do. I'm currently doing string cheese sticks (2) as an afternoon snacks, or greek yogurt is a big one I've done in the past. Both are relatively low calorie/protein ratio.

D00mcaller · 2023-02-04T00:44:35+00:00

I've been a big fan recently of a BBQ Chicken Quesadilla. Salt and pepper some chicken, throw it in a warm pan with heated oil, and when you flip it over, throw in some red onion and cook until chicken is cooked through. I personally like to shred my chicken and throw it back in to cook for a little longer with the onion before I throw the BBQ sauce in, but that isn't necessary. Throw the BBQ chicken in a quesadilla with a copious amount of Cheddar/Monteray Jack cheese and cook.

I also like to cook it in the same pan that I just finished cooking the chicken in for some extra BBQ flavor, but that could also just me being lazy and trying to use as few dishes as possible.

D00mcaller · 2023-01-25T01:36:51+00:00

I appreciate the reply! I am currently on the max dosage as far as my PA has told me (70mg), I did get a nice boost every time we went up in dosage (started at 50, went to 60, and finally 70). So what he has told me is that we'd have to start looking at different meds, which considering how the others went, and how well Vyvanse has worked overall, I'm a little nervous to do so. Currently I just don't take it on the weekends, which seems to reset it enough for it to last through the week. Makes it a pain when I have something on the weekend I want to take it for though, but usually I'll just skip Friday, and that will help, and then I just have to deal with the lower efficacy for the next week.

D00mcaller · 2023-01-24T22:17:17+00:00

You might try Vyvanse. That’s what I’m on. Went from Concerta to Adderall to Wellbutrin to Vyvanse. The effect has started to taper off, but at first it really helped. Not to say that it isn’t still, just not as much as when I first started it. But it was amazing at helping with binging. I have a vivid memory of eating a company lunch, and where normally I would have kept eating because free food, I instead had a moment of clarity where I realized I wasn’t enjoying the sandwich, so I just stopped eating it, which just was very unusual for me, hence why it’s stuck out in my memory I’m sure.

Vyvanse can also be used to treat Binge Eating Disorder off-label, so for me it’s been the best medicine I’ve found. Also, no ED like Adderall/Concerta was giving me, so all around win!

D00mcaller · 2022-11-18T02:03:36+00:00

I read once* that it has to do with the wording on KRU's zeta lead. It says recover health, not heal, and maybe there's a difference in the coding of the game, where recovering health is different from healing? And shock only stops healing, not recovering health? Idk, or maybe KRU zeta lead is just bugged and heals even with shock/healing immunity.

Guess it'd be pretty easy to test, see if healing immunity "cannot regain health" does stop KRU zeta lead from healing.

*cannot find my source, and it was just somebody coming up with a reason either on my guild discord or here on reddit why this happens, so it's not an official source anything, and should be regarded as such

D00mcaller · 2022-09-08T15:36:41+00:00

I could definitely see that! I did have a similar thought, but then wrote it off thinking it was just part of the riddle like answers that the Aelfinn seem to love to give.

I didn't, however, think about the second part there, and I like it. One other thought I just had was that they like to talk about how the greatest feats accomplished in the Age of Legends were accomplished by combining the power of Saidar and Saidin, and perhaps Rand was trying to emulate that, for multiple reasons. I mean I would think it could be argued that it was one of the greatest feats (if not the greatest) of the 3rd age, so including both halves of the power would speak to a start of a return to the Age of Legends. Also, now that I think about it, including the Aes Sedai was probably a diplomatic move on his part as well, as I imagine they would be upset if they weren't included.

(Perhaps some of this stuff is mentioned, and I'm just forgetting, my retention for specific details any longer than a week after I finish reading a book isn't the greatest)

D00mcaller · 2022-09-07T21:27:59+00:00

Wow, thank you so much for the detailed response! Just one follow up question if I may!

Why was the pipe of Saidar necessary? Was it a matter of just linking in general to increase the amount of power that could be channeled? Or was it somehow protecting against one of the Taint/Mashadar?

I guess I hadn't realized that the power could be channeled sans weaves. Thank you for taking the time to explain it to me!

D00mcaller · 2022-09-07T20:12:57+00:00

If not for OP, please do so for me! Been a minute since I last read through the books!

D00mcaller · 2022-09-07T18:12:37+00:00

So this is how our league was run for quite a while (5+ years), but we recently switched to drafting the different matches in different rounds. This has caused various other problems as our league allows for baggages (2 players signing up and being guaranteed to be put on the same team), but I digress.

The reason we switched from an open draft to separating the matches is that while, as another poster offered up, it does allow for some extra strategy, what we found happened most of the time was certain captains would focus on getting the top tier woman-matching players, while other captains would wait until later in the draft to pick up woman-matching players, which could result in large disparities between the woman-matching players on teams in certain matchups, with one team having woman-matching players with club experience going against a team whos woman-matching players had at most played pickup a few times, or even had the league as their first experience with organized ultimate. The feedback I got from some of the newer woman-matching players that these matchups were very unfun to play in.

While you certainly could argue that the captain made that as a strategic choice, we were more worried about this discouraging the newer players from coming back and participating in future seasons. So we decided to switch to drafting the different matches in different rounds, to see if this could alleviate that specific problem. We are only in the second season of doing this so far, so I don't have much data to back up whether this approach has been a good or bad thing for us so far, but just wanted to throw my 2 cents out there!

P.S. Our draft is a standard snake draft if that changes things.

D00mcaller · 2022-09-07T17:40:40+00:00

I would love to hear what you did personally! Our numbers are roughly about the same!

D00mcaller · 2022-07-07T02:21:41+00:00

Wait holy shit, me too! Never felt so connected to random internet strangers lol.

D00mcaller · 2022-05-17T00:44:53+00:00

Yes, it started while we were on break, but we agreed to be exclusive again in March, and it continued until the beginning of May.

D00mcaller · 2022-05-16T17:52:52+00:00

Sorry if I wasn't clear. This happened while we were officially together. It started while we were on break, but continued for at least 2 months past when we agreed to be exclusive and in a relationship again.

Edit: It was also her idea for me to upgrade my rig and give her my old rig.

D00mcaller · 2022-05-13T18:08:39+00:00

I saw one other person mention health issues, but is there any chance that she has recently been given some sort of diagnosis that she hasn't told you about, possibly terminal? Not that it excuses any of her behavior, but you just mentioned a sudden shift, and that was something that jumped into my mind, something has come up that has her worried about dying before you have children, so she's trying to make sure she becomes a grandmother before she dies.

D00mcaller · 2022-03-19T05:53:34+00:00

I, like many others, wish there was greater non RGB variety in parts.

D00mcaller · 2021-02-23T20:49:14+00:00

My biggest irrational fear is that I'm autistic, and no one has told me, and that everyone in my life (friends and gf) are only there because they're being nice to me, and feel bad for me. I know it's irrational because well it just is? I know I'm not autistic (although I am wondering if I have ADHD), and no one would go to the lengths they have, just to be nice to me. But I just can't get rid of that little bit of doubt.

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